Storefront volunteer advisor Matthew Gore (left) with a service user.
Assisting people for 32 years in the Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood, where over 40% of households live below the poverty line, Project Genesis involves people from all walks of life in defending social and economic rights through a combination of individual services and community organizing.
After Ms. B.’s total monthly income was mysteriously cut down to about $200,
she came to Project Genesis…
After reading the rather cryptic letter of explanation, the volunteer Storefront advisor who met with Ms. B. explained that her welfare cheque was being cut by about $400 because it was considered that she was benefitting from income from a rooming-house operation. Not only that, Ms. B. was facing a large debt because she had neglected to declare the income from roomers for some time.
In fact, Ms. B. lived in an apartment with her four grown daughters, her son-in-law and two grandchildren. Two of her daughters were in full-time studies, one was on a sick leave, and the other cared for her two pre-schoolers while her husband worked.
Contesting this debt and eliminating the large deductions required researching the relevant sections of the welfare law, regulations, and interpretation manual. Following the Storefront interventions, Ms. B.’s cheque was restored to its full amount and the debt was cancelled. We were delighted when eventually two of Ms. B.’s daughters became volunteer receptionists at our Storefront!
Individual Services
Malika Bhatty at the June 2008 Members Assembly Meeting:
“Project Genesis is very important for me
because it works for social justice.”
Through direct individual services, we promote and protect the rights of people living in poverty, recent immigrants, the elderly, young families, and other members of our community. Our primary areas are housing, basic income — including old age security pensions, welfare and family allowances — and access to public health care.
Our assistance often, for example, makes the difference between keeping or losing one’s apartment, and between receiving or being denied pension benefits.
Through Project Genesis’ Storefront drop-in centre, this past year over 60 volunteer advisors and receptionists, 12 student interns, and several staff provided 9,721 in-person interventions, assisting people of 130 countries of origin. We responded with information, referrals and individual advocacy. An estimated 9,000 interventions were also provided over the phone.
Our Home Advocacy Services (HAS) Program brings our Storefront services directly to local residents who are homebound. In 2008/09, the program provided almost 250 interventions, improving the living conditions of the people served, and breaking through the isolation of those confined to their homes.
Community Organizing
Bernadette Duval and Daren Laine,
of the Housing Rights Committee,
with mock judges for the Rental Board.
Through our community organizing work, we bring people together to work on issues of common concern. Working both at the neighbourhood level through our committees, and at wider levels with other organizations, we strive to improve the living conditions, policies and programs affecting the daily lives of residents of our local community and Montreal.
This past year we focused our organizing work on housing, welfare and health care. In all of these areas, staff and committee members, including many local residents, worked together for concrete solutions, such as for higher welfare benefits to cover the actual costs of living, new social housing initiatives, and better access to health care.
Housing
Jenifa Phillips, Laila Bary and friend, and
Mrs. Bobb of the Housing Rights Committee.
The Housing Rights Committee promotes greater access to decent, safe and affordable housing. Members work toward long-term solutions to the serious housing problems in Côte-des-Neiges: the shortage of apartments for people living in poverty, the climbing rents, and buildings left in disrepair. This past year, members continued their work to increase the number of social housing apartments in the neighbourhood and across Québec. Their work included producing a brief that was submitted to the Provincial Parliamentary Commission on Homelessness. The Committee also worked to reduce the long delays for a hearing at the Rental Board. In 2008/09, we focused on the need for more commissioners, or Rental Board ‘judges’, as the solution to this problem.
Outreach: local door-knocking
The Outreach Team, with almost 20 trained Outreach volunteers, visited residents of buildings with housing problems this past year, offering information door-to-door about rights and responsibilities, as well as offering referrals to our Storefront services and information on our community organizing activities. The team this past year included speakers of French, English, Spanish, Tamil, Hindi, Bengali, Mandarin Chinese, and Tagalog. In 2008/09 Outreach Team volunteers knocked on 1,182 doors in Côte-des-Neiges, leaving information brochures, and held discussions with people of 426 households.
Welfare and anti-poverty
Elsa Humbert and Julia Rys, Storefront volunteer advisors at our 2009 Volunteer Appreciation Party.
This past year, the Anti-Poverty Committee sought better government action against poverty, including higher welfare benefits, as well as improved services at the local welfare and employment offices. For a number of years, the work for higher welfare benefits has focused in part on the need for benefits to be fully indexed. In 2008/09 Project Genesis contributed, along with other organizations across Quebec, to a small yet very important victory: welfare benefits were fully indexed in 2009.
Public health care for new immigrants
Under the three-month waiting period for health care, referred to as the délai de carence, new immigrants do not have access to Medicare, and must either obtain private insurance or go without coverage. Work on this issue included public education events and screenings of the documentary ‘Almost Welcome,’ as well as documenting the impact of the waiting period through collecting personal stories. With community partners, we also met with officials of provincial ministries to outline our concerns regarding the three-month waiting period and to offer the solutions we envision.
